Sunday, July 18, 2010

7/18/10 Money in the Bank

Kane vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Christian vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Matt Hardy vs. Drew McIntyre vs. The Big Show (Smackdown MITB Ladder Match): Excellent match. Wow. The match went about half an hour, and was filled with a lot of carnage. Cool spot with Big Show getting the reinforced ladder in the ring. Also a cool spot when Show got buried in ladders. I totally did not expect Kane to win -- now the tallest and biggest MITB winner in history. Shows how much the internet people know. Everyone really had their moment in the match. ****

Alicia Fox vs. Eve Torres (Divas Title): And of course, we must have a divas match right after an awesome match. The two actually made it a little watchable, but the crowd really didn't care for the most part. 3/4*

Tyson Kidd & David Hart Smith vs. Jey Uso & Jimmy Uso (Unified Tag Team Titles): So wait a minute, WWE refuses to acknowledge Umaga by name now? What's the deal with that? Anyway, good action here, but the match was quite short and the Usos only controlled the action for a little while. It was a mostly basic match that threw in a few fancy moves. *1/2

Rey Mysterio vs. Jack Swagger (World Title): So they call it the "World Title" or "World Championship" for the time being because Rey is not considered a "heavyweight" in the usual sense of the term. Very nice action in this one. Pretty cool that they recreate the spot Eddie Guerrero did against Kurt Angle several years ago with loosening the boot to get out of the ankle lock. ***

Kane vs. Rey Mysterio (World Title): Poor Rey. He never gets a proper world title reign. That's all I have to say. N/A

Layla vs. Kelly Kelly (Women's Title): No no no. More filler. One comment: the spot where KK fell on the ring apron looked pretty awkward and could have really hurt. I did not like this match. 1/4*

The Miz vs. Randy Orton vs. Mark Henry vs. Ted DiBiase vs. John Morrison vs. Chris Jericho vs. Evan Bourne vs. Edge (RAW MITB Ladder Match): Great match. Very nice spots involved. Orton got huge pops in this one, especially when he was going for the briefcase. Same with Bourne. I felt the match was not as good as the Smackdown MITB match. The right man won in this one. Miz has come so far in the last two years, and he really has made it to the big time. ***3/4

Sheamus vs. John Cena (WWE Title): This was a decent title match. Nice use of the cage. A couple of false finishes...liked that as well. Nexus made their impact, as promised. Sheamus won and managed to escape through the crowd, and of course, Cena was pissed and took out 2-3 Nexus members. The match accomplished its purpose: Sheamus won, Cena lost, and Nexus played a role in that. Does it make Sheamus look like a credible champ? Barely, if at all. Sure, he at least kicked out of the Attitude Adjustment, but he still tapped in the STF while the refs were nuked or occupied. Typical heel win. ***

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MVPs: Miz. He deserved to win MITB more than anyone on the roster. A man who has come so far in such a short time. I look forward to seeing him as WWE champion in the very near future.

Overall Rating: It was a good PPV, but not mind-blowing. I really did not like Kane winning the Smackdown MITB. Fine, so he is trying to figure out who took out Taker. Based on the MITB win, I am almost certain one of two things will happen: (1) Swagger admits taking out Taker; or (2) Kane will just say he was the one who did it.

I really feel for Rey Mysterio. The poor guy cannot catch a break. Both of his World Title reigns were basically horribly booked and made him a mere transitional champion. I understand he's small and does not fit the Vince prototype, but can you really hold that against him, especially when he's so popular with the fans? If Vince can shove Cena down our throats over and over again, can't WWE push Rey to the moon and give him a proper reign just ONCE?!

Rumors are circulating that John Cena could turn heel and join up with Nexus. Frankly, I would love that. Cena likely wouldn't be boring and stale anymore. The big problem is obviously merchandise. Cena moves more merchandise than anyone else in WWE, and until someone else can step up (i.e., Bourne, Orton, Kofi, Morrison, etc.), then Cena will likely be stuck as a face.

The other name bounced around to be the mastermind behind Nexus is HHH, as the Game has wanted to turn heel for a while now (and since there is no HBK, he's really free to do so now). However, that seems unlikely -- at least for now. HHH will be out a while longer to recover from surgery.

Four nice matches, but both divas matches were predictable stinkers, and the tag match was not too impressive (other than that Samoan drop). The bad matches really took away from the show for me. I look forward to seeing how they book Miz and what WWE will do with Cena/Sheamus/Nexus. ***

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